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00:01 So last week we had our brother David Adams uh speak to us about the festival
00:08 booth where the joy of the Lord is your strength and as they read the word of
00:14 God they respond in joy and today uh just a few weeks later on we come to
00:21 another part of the passage where there's also another response to the word of God world when it's read has two
00:27 responses. One is joy and the other one is actually sadness. If you look here 91
00:32 on on the 24th day of this month, the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and sackcloth and with earth on
00:39 their heads and the Israelites separate themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed their sins and iniquities
00:45 of their fathers. So here's a time when they they actually caught together and there was a time of mourning putting
00:52 sackcloth that both uncomfortable rough cloth uh on them to symbolize their
00:58 grief about the committing of sins uh putting the earth on their head. Uh they
01:03 stood in their place and read from the book of the law their god for a quarter
01:09 of a day. The young lady only read for 10 minutes and some people were shifting already. They read for a quarter of a
01:14 day. Another quarter of the day they made confession and they wor and they worshiped the Lord. So there's a dual
01:19 response to God's word. In one hand there is joy which was the festival of boots and now there is sadness and
01:27 confession. Now 2020 we want to start off we started off with joy last week.
01:32 Today we talk about sadness about repentance. One of the most common misunderstandings about repentance is
01:39 that repentance only happens after the sinner's prayer. You first become a
01:44 Christian, you realize you're a sinner in in in dust and ashes and you in tears, you dissolve into repentance and
01:51 then you don't have to repent after that. That's a common misunderstanding. The other misunderstanding is that you
01:57 repent after serious sin. If you strangle your mother-in-law or you kick the cat or something, then you have to
02:04 repent because it's something really bad. And when you see somebody repenting in church, you get very what did he do?
02:10 we pick up our ears because he must have done something very delicious you know for us to gossip about. Uh that's
02:17 another misunderstanding. The third misunderstanding is that you know repentance means you're weak as a
02:24 Christian you're a failure. You're Christian leader and you're repenting. Ah something wrong with you isn't it? So
02:31 therefore we when we come let's say for our Bible study on Wednesdays everybody will stay for the talk but nobody will
02:37 stay for the group. You know why? because some repentance may go on there. So they feel very uncomfortable because
02:42 repentance indicates that you are not perfect that you are a sinner or
02:48 something's happened you're less than what you should be. In fact a Christian life should be victorious. We should be
02:54 hallelujah all the time. We should be clapping, raising our hands, having miracles, raising the dead. That's what
03:01 Christian life is about. Uh in fact there's a book by one of the pastors down south destined to reign. Paul
03:08 Bucker reviewed that he looked look at the title the secret to effortless success wholeness and victorious living.
03:16 So Christian life is recast as something victorious something effortless.
03:22 Wow. I don't know about you my Christian life has not been effortless. All right.
03:28 In fact, he he writes that we not must not preach the ten commandments because they kill. They lead the believers to
03:33 sickness and death. And in fact, he claims not to uh support confession of
03:39 our sins. Is this what Christian life is about? Well, you go back a couple hundred years, the 1500s to Martin
03:45 Luther when he first hung up the 95 thesis on the the doorpost of this
03:51 university. And the first of those thesis says when our lord and master Jesus Christ said repent he will the
03:59 entire life of believers to be one of repentance. So Martin Luther is the one
04:04 that says it's not the oneoff thing. You know your whole life has to be one of
04:09 repentance. Why? Well Romans 8 tells you I know that nothing good dwells in me
04:16 that is my flesh. I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. I don't do the good I
04:23 want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it's no longer I who do it,
04:29 but sin that dwells with within me. And the enemy inside me is sin. And if we
04:35 have sinned, therefore, there must be repentance. And yet, we go around life
04:41 that telling each other that my only time I repented was when I became a Christian. After that, I don't have to repent. I'm okay. I'm bulletproof. And
04:48 that's not true, isn't it? So today we're going to look at the prayer of repentance of confession of the
04:54 Israelites under Nehemiah. And I want to talk about the nature of repentance so that we understand. It's very easy for
05:01 preacher like us to come up there and tell you to repent. But how do you actually go about doing it? Why is it so
05:08 difficult? How do you actually overcome the difficulties? So that repentance both joy and repentance can be two
05:15 halves of the coin in our lives. It has to be okay our lives have this dual
05:21 emphasis. So the nature of repentance if you look at the passage will begin repentance begins with worship.
05:26 Repentance is our response to his goodness and repentance is enabled by his grace. Three points. The first thing
05:32 is repentance begins with worship. You look here that the Levites Yeshua Cadmill Bani oh this was difficult. Haj
05:40 mana Shahiba. I'll skip those those names. All right.
05:46 It's beyond my Chinese lips. Uh, stand up and bless the Lord your God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be
05:52 your glorious name which is exalted above all blessing and praise. You are the Lord. You alone. You have made
05:58 heaven, the heaven of heavens with all their hosts, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in them.
06:03 And you preserve all of them and the host of heaven worship. So when you actually start to repent, the most
06:12 counterintuitive thing is actually look at God and not look at your sin. That's
06:19 very counterintuitive, isn't it? The first thing you do is actually worship. And it's looking at who God is. God is
06:26 the almighty creator. He's the one who sustains us. He's the one which we
06:32 should worship. Now, Pope Francis said this, "Worship is stripping ourselves of
06:37 our idols, even the most hidden ones, and choosing our Lord as the center, as
06:42 a highway of our lives." Why do you worship? Why? Because the center of your life has shifted. All sin comes from the
06:50 shifting of the center. Pope Francis says, "It's idolatry." In fact, uh,
06:56 Nehemiah 9, when they made for themselves a golden calf and said, "This is your God who brought you out of Egypt
07:02 and had committed great blasphemies. You in your great mercies did not forsake them in the wilderness." The first thing
07:08 that happens when they get salvation, they worship idols.
07:15 Hatah, Hebrew word for sin is basically missing the mark. See, sin is an image
07:21 problem. We are created to be in the image of God. That's the blueprint for our lives. But what is sin? Sin is
07:26 aiming somewhere other than the center and that is not God. Soren Kagotard says
07:33 sin is building your identity on anything but God. Tim Keller writes sin
07:38 is the desparing refusal to find your deepest identity in your relationship and service to God. Sin is seeking to
07:45 become oneself to get an identity apart from him. So according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just
07:52 doing the bad things but making the good things into the ultimate things. So behind sin is what? Idolatry. And so
07:60 therefore the cure for that is actually worship. When you worship something bigger than yourself look at when you
08:08 what you do when you worship when you worship you're confronted by the holiness of God. Isaiah chapter 6, a
08:14 very famous passage. When Isaiah starts off his ministry, he looks and is confronted by this huge vision of God.
08:22 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up and the train of his robe
08:28 filled the temple. Above him stood the saraphim. Each has six wings. With two he covered face, two he covered his
08:34 feet, two he flew and one called together the other. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is
08:40 full of his glory. is is this huge vision of who God is. And the foundation
08:46 and threshold shook and the voice of him called out and the house was filled with smoke and he said, "Woe is me for I am
08:53 lost for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the
08:59 King, the Lord of hosts." So the more we see God as glorious and holy, the more
09:05 we will see sin is something to weep over. Repentance is less about feeling bad about our behavior, but more about
09:11 feeling awe and glory and amazement at the beauty of God. And we see our sin in
09:19 the light of that because otherwise we won't sin see sin well because sin is deceptive. If you look at Adam uh and
09:26 Eve's sons uh Cain and Abel, Cain had a less substandard kind of um offering and
09:34 he was very tempted. is very angry. His brother is going to kill his brother. Just before that, God talks to him. Lord
09:39 said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? If you don't
09:45 do well, sin is crouching at a door. It desire is contrary to you, but you must rule it." So sin is described
09:51 metaphorically as crouching at the door. Why do you think sin is crouching?
09:56 Because it wants to hide so that you can't see it and then it
10:02 pounces. And that's the problem with sin. in our lives when we look at our lives don't have much sin. Well, I mean
10:07 I mean I I they say I'm impulsive. Actually, I'm decisive. Isn't it? They say I'm greedy. No, I
10:14 ambitious. They say I'm selfish. No, I'm disciplined. I only look after myself. C
10:21 I'm very disciplined about looking after myself. My own bank account, my own house, my own people. Or they say I'm
10:26 greedy. No, I'm very focused on making profit. I'm stingy. No, I'm a sharp businessman. I'm vain. Ola, I appreciate
10:33 good grooming. I mean, that's how we recast things. Why? Because when we look at sin, we
10:40 look at ourselves. We don't look at God. All right? I came across this article
10:45 where we look at messy people like I am and and they say messy people are good. Messy people don't sweat the small
10:50 stuff. That means all of you freak all this uh very tidy people, you
10:56 only sweat all the small unimportant stuff. Usy people, we only important big stuff. In fact, if you look at the way
11:02 we organize our lives, many messy people have their own special organization system. Underwear over there, tie over
11:10 there, you step in my house, it's like a minefield. All right? But it's a special organizational system which you don't
11:16 understand. Don't touch it. Or being messy is actually an art. Nobody creates
11:22 art like I do. All right? So again when we look at ourselves as the criteria we
11:29 are not going to be in a good position. In fact uh obedience is a matter of
11:34 worship. Now as a result the Israelites separated themselves from all foreigners and stood and confessed the sins and
11:41 iniquities of their fathers. Here you actually have confession of sin and they separated from the foreigners whom that
11:47 married. Uh in fact we've got this funny idea of marriage that marriage is the most important thing. In fact, it's
11:53 actually the second most important decision you make in your life. The first one is to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Second one is to marry
11:59 that particular person. And in that most important decision, they had married
12:05 people who weren't believers. And when they come to confession, they
12:10 had to forsake that. In fact, that that actual command comes right down to us on in the
12:17 New Testament. And if you look in 2 Corinthians 6:14, for the same reason God says, "Do not be unequally yolked
12:23 with believers, you can't marry a non-Christian." Why? Because what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light
12:29 with darkness? What accord? Three times righteousness, lawlessness,
12:36 light, darkness, Christ, the devil. You You belong to completely different
12:42 camps. So how can young people putting love as number one start to
12:48 marry somebody who has not the same beliefs? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? We are the temple of
12:56 the living God. God said I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them. So God will be exclusive to them. I will
13:02 dwell with them. I will walk with them. I will be their God. They shall be my people. So God draws himself to them and
13:08 then say therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them says the Lord and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you and I'll be a father to
13:14 you. You shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. So as the Lord separates himself to the people of
13:19 Israel, the people of Israel separate themselves to him. So marrying a non-Christian spouse or not is a matter
13:27 of fidelity and worship. And when this actually comes out, it's
13:34 not just marrying someone so that you'll be in heaven one day, you'll find your soulmate, you'll both play the violin
13:41 like Joano, right? That's not what marriage is about. You know why? Because
13:49 in heaven, will there be marriage? Anyone know married people? Will there be marriage in heaven? What did Jesus
13:55 say? None. And there's a reason why there is no
14:00 marriage in heaven. There's no marriage in heaven because marriage has a purpose. And the purpose is on earth.
14:07 When God said it's not good for the man to be alone and they come together because the marriage between a man and a
14:14 wife is a reflection between the love of Jesus Christ and the church. It's a paradigm for the world to look at the
14:22 beautiful love between a man and his wife and how they help each other grow and glorify God. But when they die, you
14:29 should know when you die, your marriage is fulfilled. The purposes for which God has brought you together to disciple you
14:36 together has been fulfilled. And in heaven, you worship before the unshielded glory of God forever and ever
14:44 and ever. So that's what marriage is about. And Nemiah's chapter 10, the rest
14:50 of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants, all have separate themselves
14:55 from the peoples of the land. So they separated themselves to the law of God, their wives, their sons, their
15:00 daughters, all who have knowledge and understanding to join with their brothers, their nobles, and enter into a curse and an oath to walk in God's law
15:07 that was given by Moses, the servant of God, and to observe and do all the commandments of the Lord our God and his
15:12 rules and his statutes. We will not give our daughters to the people of the land or take their daughters to our sons.
15:19 This is what repentance is about. It is actually transformation so that you're obedient to God's laws. Second one,
15:26 repentance is not only uh uh begins with worship because it puts you in the right perspective to see your sin. Repentance
15:33 is a response to his goodness. If you look in this entire passage, a long passage, you read, you are a God, Lord,
15:40 God who chose Abraham out of all the people in the world, God chooses one man
15:47 who's basically a pagan at that time out of the land of Calaldans. Gave him the
15:53 name Abraham. You found you you you gave him a covenant to give his offspring the land of Canaan. So he prom out of one
15:59 man. He promises him the promised land. And then you saw the affliction of your
16:04 fathers in Egypt and heard their cry. He saved them from Egypt. And then he saved
16:10 them with wonders and signs and miracles. You divided the sea. By day
16:15 there was a pillar of cloud. By night a pillar of fire miracles. And then you
16:20 gave them the right to uh write rules and true laws. You commanded them with
16:26 laws and statutes and law given by Moses your servant. You gave them the benefit of the law. And lastly, when they were
16:32 in 40 years in the desert, mana and water. You see, he outlines every single
16:39 good thing. The whole prayer is about the goodness of God. Why does he do that? Well, because when you actually
16:45 come to repentance, it's not a good time. Whenever you come to sin, you get
16:51 embarrassed. You feel like a failure. You feel worthless and you feel
16:56 hopeless. Because sin can either seen as a failure of intimacy or a failure of
17:03 performance. And the problem is most of us perceive sin as a failure of performance. Matthew
17:11 8 4:17 from the time Jesus began preach saying repent for the kingdom of God is
17:17 at hand. The word repent in Greek is metaninoa which is basically a change in
17:23 your mind. It's just a mind shift. A complete change in a mind shift that leads to a deep transformation of your
17:31 life. In fact, the Catholics actually mistransated metadora into a Latin which
17:37 actually means do penance. That's a big deal. There's a difference between changing your mind and doing penance.
17:42 Doing penance means performing better. So if you got repentance, you either
17:48 reestablish intimacy because you perceive this as a intimacy problem, respond to love, or you try to improve
17:56 your performance. And the default mode when we talk about repentance is that, oh, I got to do better.
18:03 My self-esteem is based on my performance. Well, actually, repentance should be reestablishing intimacy,
18:09 responding to God's love. So we got bad Luke 18. The two men who come before God
18:15 in the temple to pray. One of them just falls before God say I'm a terrible sinner. You know why? He's a tax
18:21 collector. There's no hope for tax collectors. Right? And the other guy says, "Oh, no,
18:26 no, no. I I I uh fast twice a week. I give tithes of all I get." So he comes.
18:33 So what's he doing? He's performing. This guy is not performing. He's just falling before say I'm I'm totally
18:38 hopeless. The right response is this guy, not this guy. If you look at Luke
18:44 18 and then 19, there are two parables almost side by side. All right? One is a
18:49 parable of the rich young man ruler. The other man is a short tax collector, ugly
18:56 guy, you know, he's not a guy you want to invite to your house. Last guy you want to invite house, the first guy is what you want to invite your house. He's
19:03 rich. He's a ruler maybe tansfree somewhere you know maybe join a good party like basatu okay and and he comes
19:11 to Jesus Christ and he says no what must I do to inherit eternal life see his
19:18 perception of sin is performance right right so what must I do to to to to
19:24 inherit eternal life so Jesus plays with him a bit says you know have you kept the
19:29 commandments all the 1 2 3 4 5 six commandments yeah I kept all of them well very good and then Jesus Jesus said to him
19:35 when Jesus said this one thing you still lack sell all you have distribute to the
19:41 poor you will treasure in heaven come and follow me. The whole issue is what?
19:48 Follow me. This is a chap who is going to do something but he is not there to
19:53 follow Jesus. The whole idea is not performance. You know the whole idea is
19:58 sin is a loss of intimacy. It is a person, not the things that you do. And
20:05 so he walks away. Then you got Zakius, a short man, unmistakably horribly evil.
20:13 He's embezzled everybody's bunny. He's probably involved in a tabang tabong heist or something.
20:19 And then he is hiding up at the top of the u Jesus come to town and because
20:24 he's short, he can't see. uh and he was seeking to see who Jesus was on account
20:30 of the crowd he could not because he was small in age and then Jesus of all the
20:36 people there Jesus points to him you you you up there there hiding in the
20:43 the the tree the the catchina tree I'm coming to your house so he hurried down
20:48 and received him joyfully these these two stories are put side by side why
20:54 does Jesus put these two stories side by side because shows you on one hand performance on the other hand what is
21:00 repentance it's a relationship it's a restoration of intimacy and Zakius was a
21:06 accepted the rich young man was not accepted and
21:11 then and then what we do is that we try to make up we're like the Pharisees
21:17 we're proud of our morality I'm very proud I only buried one wife
21:22 some of them a few spare tires here and there not quite so good or I'm a very merciful person. I give a lot of money
21:28 to the poor. I've got a good job and I and I've done very well. And that job that you done very well with becomes
21:35 part of your own righteousness or your financial ability or your bank account
21:40 or some of you may think because I've got all the right doctrine, I am Calvinist. I am fivepoint reform. All
21:47 the rest of you are heretics. And that becomes your what? That is becomes your righteousness.
21:54 Right now, when we talk about repentance, the Old Testament metaphors for repentance are all very painful. If
21:60 you talk about Jeremiah 4:4, circumcision of the heart, you think circumcision of the this down there is
22:06 very painful. Wait till you circumcise your heart. What about plowing the land
22:11 in Hosea? Ground, hard ground being broken up. Metaphors for repentance are always
22:18 painful. Repentance is actually part of your Christian life because sin is part
22:25 of it. The only way you grow is through repentance. If repentance is only the
22:30 one time you become Christian and then then nothing else happen then you would not have grown. In fact uh my children
22:37 who are into bodybuilding tell me this. They go, we go to the gym and then they
22:43 exercise. And yeah, if you actually exercise properly and exert the right amount of energy, you'll find for the
22:50 next 48 hours, you're going to have body ache everywhere. And I always thought body ache everywhere is bad thing. Actually, it's a good thing. You know
22:57 why? Because as you exercise, you're going to cause micro tears in your muscles. And when you cause micro tears
23:02 in muscle, the the muscle repairs itself and it grows even bigger. So one day I'm
23:07 going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I'm looking forward to that day, probably resurrection day.
23:16 But that's the same thing. Unless we grow, we only grow through joy and we go
23:22 through repentance. And that has to be part of our daily workout. It has to cause pain. Sin is either failure
23:29 intimacy or failure of performance. And if you think it's a failure of performance, then you have grief. And
23:34 your pain is due to the consequences. If you have real grief is godly grief
23:40 because you have a loss of intimacy there. So when you're upset because of sin, there are two things. You're either upset over the consequences of sin or
23:46 you're upset over the fact that there's a loss of intimacy with God. And 2 Corinthians chapter 7:10 says, "For
23:52 godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret where worldly grief produces death." They both
23:58 have the same unpleasant feeling just like going doing the workout and getting in pain. Well, one leads to repentance,
24:05 one leads to death. And here you have the young man. And Jesus says to young man, when Jesus heard this, he said to
24:12 him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all you have, distribute to the poor, you will have treasure in heaven. Come and
24:18 follow me." But when he heard these things, he became very sad. You know why? Because he's very rich. How many of
24:25 you seen very rich people very sad, right? He came very sad because he was
24:30 very, very rich. because he wouldn't follow Jesus. So what is his grief due to? His grief is due to consequences
24:38 of his sin. He couldn't follow Jesus. And so that is not godly grief. You you
24:46 I had a I had a relative I stayed with at some stage in another country. Um and
24:53 you'd find that he used to gamble. He go to the races every Friday night and
24:59 whenever he won very good whole bag full of Kentucky fried chicken bucket and
25:05 everybody was happy at home. The wife was happy, children happy, everybody happy. We all Kentucky Fried Chicken and you know um but when he lost at the
25:13 races he would come back stinking drunk. He abused his wife and everybody had to
25:19 run away and hide, you know, hide in the cupboard and all sorts of things. Next day he would be very apologetic and very
25:24 upset. Why? because he got a terrible hangover. He's suffering for the consequences of his drinking and the way
25:30 he treated his family. But did he ever change? Never changed. Because if you only have
25:37 grief over your consequences, you don't often change. Look at the two people
25:42 here, Peter and Judas. Both of them betrayed God, right? In fact, Peter is
25:47 worse. Betrayed God how many times? Three times. Judas only one time, right?
25:53 And here is the message by Eugene Peterson how he translates Judas one who
25:58 betrayed him realized that Jesus were doomed. Overcome with remorse he gave
26:05 back the 30 silver coin to the high priest and saying to him, "I've sinned. I betrayed an innocent man." Now what's
26:12 the deal with Judas? Judas was remorseful. Jesus was sad. The
26:18 consequences of his sin is what? An innocent man will die. But that's about it. That's about it. That's where he
26:25 stayed. Peter and he went out and wept bitterly. What happened to Peter? He
26:33 repented and he became the main disciple that led the other 12 later on. Two
26:41 differences, two expressions of grief. One brings them closer to God. One brings them further away. Because we
26:48 have to understand our sin in the light of who he is. I know my transgressions
26:54 and my sin is ever before me. Against you and you alone have I sinned and done
26:59 what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. The difference between Peter and Judas is
27:05 that Judas was all about performance. He was an honorable man.
27:13 He had betrayed Jesus. An innocent man goes to die on the cross. Bunny is blood
27:21 money. He is such a man of integrity. He gives the money back.
27:27 But the guilt doesn't go away. Why? Because he's such a terrible
27:32 person. He's a traitor and he cannot live it with himself. So what does he do? He kills himself. That's how sin
27:41 grabs you. No, you know that's how sin grabs you. And you know why Judas killed himself? probably because you know why Satan stand next to him and tell him ah
27:50 they call Satan the accuser like that how can you do that God will never
27:56 forgive you are never going to be used for the kingdom of God that's exactly what Satan says and Judas listened and
28:03 Judas went to kill himself Peter on the other hand wept you know why just like
28:09 David says I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me against you and you
28:16 alone have I sinned, which means it's a break in relationship. He perceived the sin in terms of a loss of intimacy with
28:23 God, a loss of a love relationship, a betrayal of the one that loves you. When you see sin in that light,
28:31 then you repent. If you see sin as merely your lack of performance, then
28:37 you kill yourself. In fact, if you look at 2 Samuel 12:7,
28:42 Nathan said to David, "You are the man, thus says the Lord God of Israel. I appointed you king over Israel. I
28:49 delivered you out of the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house, your master's wives into your arms, and gave
28:55 you the house of Israel and Judah. And if this was too little, I would add you much more." Why have you despised the
29:01 word of God to do what is evil in his sight? You see, the sin is cast as a break in relationship. as on one hand he
29:07 tells you what God has done for him how the good on the other hand how he's betrayed that good so sin is seen as a
29:14 loss of intimacy Joseph tempted by Pyafa's wife
29:20 all right he's thinking the wife wants to have sex with me she's beautiful
29:25 if he thinks oh if I have sex with her I'm single man he's a single man forget he's not married if I have sex with her
29:32 then I'll get veneerial disease I cannot pass water after that I'll be very sick.
29:37 Does he think of that? No. What does he say? How then can I do this great
29:43 wickedness and sin against God? He perceives the sin in terms of what? Loss
29:49 of intimacy in relationship. That's the secret to repentance. And so
29:54 therefore all the goodness of God in the prayer which the Nemiah's group pray the
30:00 chosen the promised land save from God miracles law whatever it is is always cast in sharp relief against our sin.
30:08 And you look in verse uh 25 they captured fortified cities in rich lands and took possession of houses full of
30:15 good things already healed vineyards olive uh orchards fruit trees in
30:20 abundance. They ate and were filled and became fat and delighted themselves in good great your great uh great goodness.
30:26 Nevertheless, they were disobedient. They rebelled against you, cast your law behind their
30:32 back and killed your prophets who warned them in order to turn them back to you. And they committed great blasphemies.
30:38 You see, goodness of God is always cast against a stark relief of your sin in
30:45 order to bring you back from that sin. Why does God love them? Why does God put
30:51 up with these people? Well, if you look at Deuteronomy 7:6, for you are a people
30:56 holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you for a people for his own treasured possession. Out of all the
31:03 peoples who are on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more in number than any other people than the
31:10 Lord set his love on you and chose you. You were fewer than all the people. It
31:15 is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to his fathers that the Lord has brought you out with his mighty hand and redeemed
31:21 you from the house of slavery from the hands of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Why does God love you? The answer is
31:27 actually a circular answer. God loves you because he loves you. Imagine your
31:32 wife asks you a trick question. Darling, why do you love me?
31:38 Oo, trick question, right? If you ever say, "Oh, I love you because you're so
31:43 nice and kind and you're absolutely beautiful. You're 36, 24, and 36 or
31:49 something like that." Big problem because 20 years from now, she won't be 36, 36, 36.
31:56 All right? The reasons for which you love someone will then change. And will your love change? The difference between
32:03 divine love and human love is that divine love loves you because he loves you. So the correct answer to your wife
32:09 when she asks you this question, I love you darling because I love you,
32:15 right? That's a trick question. So and here you actually have once a
32:22 year the high priest yipore he will go before the holy of holies offer
32:28 sacrifice and on his breastplate will have 12 precious stones. The 12 precious
32:35 stones represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Why is it precious stones? Because in God's eyes,
32:43 you are totally precious. Just like those precious stones. You look at
32:50 Exodus 19, Isaiah 43, Exodus miracle, return of Babylonian exile. They're cast
32:57 as God's special possession. God saves us both from exile, from Egypt as well
33:04 as in Babylon. Why? Because they are God's special people. And Exodus 19 says, "Therefore, if you indeed obey my
33:11 voice and keep a commandment, you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples of the earth is mine." The word
33:19 treasured possession in Hebrew, segula. And seulah means a example. If a king
33:26 wanted to travel to another country, in order to show the other guy how rich you are, you can't take your whole bank
33:32 account, you can't take all your gold there to show, right? You only take a token. So, if I were the queen of
33:37 England, I would take this one. Come to Malaysia Parliament House. Hey, see my crown. Very nice, right? Because
33:44 it represents all of your riches. And that word is used for the people of God
33:50 that in front of God's eyes, we are irreplaceably precious and beautiful. So you are the
33:59 chosen race, royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people irreplaceably
34:05 precious to God. Why does he do that? Because it gives us the emotional
34:12 strength to repent. Because when we sin, we lose self-esteem. It's a failure of
34:18 performance. We're terrible people. So, you dare not admit your sin. But if God tells you, you are precious. When the
34:26 high priest comes into my presence, he wears the 12 precious jewels. When Jesus
34:32 comes into the presence of God, he bears all of you with him. And he looks at you
34:38 and sees the righteousness of his son. And in that way, you're able to repent.
34:44 You know why? Because God loves you. You have the emotional capacity and strength to repent when you realize how
34:51 precious you are to God. This is the u a piece of the American
34:58 constitution. It last transacted for 9.8 million. You know why?
35:05 Anybody know why? There's a signature at the top there. G what?
35:12 Washington. It's it's only a piece of paper. It's probably moldy. It's going to fall
35:17 apart. Not really worth anything, right? But it's worth $9.8 million. Why?
35:22 Because of the guy who signed it, George Washington. And we the people of God like that. You look at us, nothing big
35:29 deal. All of you come in odds, shape, and sizes. And yet, beautiful because God has
35:36 signed his name on us. He's bled on the cross for us. And that is why we can
35:42 repent because of his love. Lastly, repentance is enabled by grace. Uh if
35:48 you look at the judges, this is a typical cycle of the history of Israel. You've got peace. Israel does evil. God
35:54 punishes Israel. Israel cries out to God. God raises up a judge. God delivers. And if you look in Nehemiah
35:60 chapter chapter 9, exactly the same thing. You blessing and they replay
36:05 blessing with adultery. You've got judgment. They cry out to God. The God delivers them. Five cycles of this
36:13 verses 16-38. We won't read but there are two constants. One sin is a
36:18 constant. Nevertheless, they were disobedient, rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your
36:23 prophets, warned them in order to turn their back to you. They committed great blasphemies. Sin is a constant. The
36:28 other constant is God. God is gracious. But you are a God ready to forgive,
36:34 gracious and mercy, slow to anger, abound in steadfast love, and did not forsake them. Did not forsake them. All
36:42 right? and and and there's a reason why God shows us grace. Romans 2, if you presume or do you presume on the riches
36:48 of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to
36:54 repentance. So the reason why God describes you know time and time again
36:59 there's sin and time and time is repentance is because he wants to bring you back and here but we misinterpret
37:07 this. We misinterpret the sin sermon on the mount. You thought Jesus came in the world. He's all loveydvey and he's going
37:14 to describe an easier way to God, right? You thought. And he goes to sermon on mount and everybody's listening. And
37:20 then he says something strange. When you are angry at someone is the same thing as murder. When you look at another
37:28 woman with lust, same thing as adultery. Oh, he didn't make things easy. He ratcheted the pressure even higher. And
37:35 so you get very upset. Then he says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out. Throw it away. It's better for
37:41 you to lose one of your members than to whole body to be thrown into, you know, hell." And then lastly, he writes, "You
37:47 therefore must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect as lucky was your coffin is now sealed."
37:54 If you read the ser the mount and understand that pointing out a sin
37:59 is not the same as expecting you to do better next time. He's not expecting you to do better. The reason why he points
38:04 out with such graphic detail the difficulties of obeying the law is that he forces you to turn to a savior. Only
38:13 Jesus can fulfill the law. You misinterpret. Right? There was a a early
38:19 church father called Oregon who suffered with sexual impurity. And look at him
38:25 what he's doing here. We won't recommend this at the health fair. He's cutting
38:30 his penis off. All right. It was written in ecclesiastical history by Uzibius
38:36 because he had so much trouble with sexual desire. So better go and do better by chopping it up. When you chop it out, you don't have any more sexual
38:42 sin. All right? He's actually correct. Uh pointing out our sin exposes underlying idolatry and forces us to a
38:50 bad to actually run to Christ. Right? The whole purpose of the law is to point
38:55 us to Christ and uh repentance actually comes because of God. The Lord's servant
39:01 must be must not be quarrelome but be kind to everyone able to teach uh patiently enduring evil correcting his
39:07 opponents with great with gentleness that God may perhaps grant them repentance. If you want to repent you
39:12 can't do it on your own. You know God has to grant you the ability to
39:18 repent. It doesn't come from yourself. It is in response to grace.
39:25 Here is Psalm 51. Hide your sin, your your face from my sin. Blot out all my
39:31 iniquities. Create in me in a new heart, oh God. Renew a right spirit within me.
39:36 See, David doesn't say, "I'm going to try better." He just says, "Create in me a new heart. Renew a right spirit. Cast
39:43 me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore me to the joy of your salvation. Uphold me
39:49 with a willing spirit. The sacrifice of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, oh Lord, you will not
39:56 despise." So, he doesn't come to God and say, "I'm going to try to do better. I really stuffed up this time. I'm going to do better." He doesn't do that. He
40:03 comes to God and say, "Look, I really messed up. I'm going to cry before you."
40:08 And that comes because of grace. There was a story told in a New York uh subway
40:15 uh a social worker called Julio Diaz. And um he always stopped one stop before
40:23 his house uh in the subway so that he would eat at a diner. And one day he was there and he was accosted by a young
40:31 teenager who held a knife threatened him and so therefore he gave up his wallet. And as the young man was walking away
40:38 with his wallet um he it just struck him. It was a very cold night. He says, "Hey look, since you're going to go
40:44 around robbing a few people, you might as well take my coat because it's very cold." The young man was totally
40:49 surprised. Take your coat. So he took his coat and now he's walking away says, "You look like you're hungry. Why don't
40:55 I take you to dinner?" And the young man was totally surprised. You just robbed the guy and the guy
41:00 wants to take you to dinner. So So he actually they went to the diner which was his favorite diner in New York City.
41:08 And everybody seemed to know him at this diner. You know the man and the young man asked you know who are you here? You
41:13 own the place. No, no, no. I've just come here often. Even a dishwater washer comes and say hello to you. Um and then
41:19 you started asking him about his purpose in life. The young man wouldn't answer. He was very ky. At the end of the meal,
41:26 the check came right. So our friend, how to pay? Uh excuse me, you got my wallet.
41:32 You know, uh you know, if you don't mind, you give me my wallet back, you know, I'll pay
41:38 the bill. So, actually the young man gave the wallet back and he took $20
41:43 from the wallet and gave it back to the young man. Uh, here here you just take this $20 and you take this and then but
41:49 I want something back in return. You know what I want? I want your knife. And the young man gave him the knife for
41:56 the $20. And you see that is what grace does.
42:02 When God forgives us, we'll take the $20 and give back the knife because grace
42:09 allows us the space and emotional capacity to repent. Grace is how those
42:18 Holy Spirit comes in our lives and allows us to repent. And as we pray
42:24 today, we're going to start off our new year by
42:29 having two aspects of our Christian life. It's not always victory. There's
42:34 victory in repentance. Learning to respond with worship.
42:40 Learning to respond to God's goodness. Repentance enabled by grace. That's why when we're not going to come to God when
42:47 we sin and and castigate ourselves and and pluck our hair and get all upset. We
42:53 grieve over our sin. But that grief has to come to a reestablishment of
42:58 intimacy. And the and the one that will stop us from doing this is the devil. If
43:03 you look, I'm going to end with one last passage. You must go back and read. And this is um Zechariah chapter 3. And then
43:12 he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right hand to
43:19 accuse him. See here is a vision high priest Joshua the best of the best of
43:24 the best in the whole of Israel. And yet standing next to Joshua is who? Satan.
43:30 Satan. And what does Satan do all the time?
43:35 Accuse. Accuse. Accuse. He's probably telling Joshua, you're never going to announce to anything. You You think you
43:41 some big shot. You high priest. Hi Lama. I know what you did yesterday.
43:47 And I think God won't forgive you. You will never be used for the kingdom of God.
43:52 Call yourself a Christian. High priest. Some more. You did that. You see, Satan
43:57 is always there to accuse us so we won't repent. In fact, we'll raise up the drawbridge, circle the wagon, and defend
44:04 ourselves. That's what we do, don't we? Why do we do that? Why are we afraid? Why are we hiding? Because Satan is
44:10 there all the time accusing us. And when that happens, you know what we should do? We should read Zechariah. Because
44:17 you know what God says to Zechariah? And the Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen
44:24 Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this a brand plucked from fire. You know what
44:30 this means? A brand is some wooden piece thrown into the fire burning
44:37 going to be in ashes. And God reaches out his hands even though they get burnt
44:42 and he grabs that from the brink of disaster and he saves this smoldering
44:48 broken piece of wood. He says, "Joshua,
44:54 you're like that, totally worthless, but I put my hand out. I got burnt in the
45:00 process, and you are precious in my sight." And Satan, shut up.
45:07 When we look at our lives, when we afraid to repent, you can tell Satan,
45:12 "Shut up." Because God says, "We are brand plucked from the fire. We're
45:19 supposed to die in hell. We're supposed to pay for every single one of our sins.
45:24 And yet, by the grace of God, he plucked us up. It is now precious. And then he
45:29 said, "Now Joshua was standing before the angel clothed in filthy garments." And the angel said to those who were
45:34 standing before him, "Remove the filthy garments from him." And to him, he said, "Behold, I've taken your iniquity away
45:40 from you. I will clothe you with pure vestments." And he said to them, "Let them put a clean turban on his head."
45:47 Put a clean turban on his head. And they clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord was standing by. See, the
45:52 trick in repentance is understanding that you are a precious brand plucked
45:57 out from the fire. And you are precious in God's sight. And that through repentance, you will grow. And we don't
46:05 let Satan condemn us to stop us from repenting to give us so much shame that
46:11 we'll never come and grow before God. Let's end with the last song which actually
46:18 expresses how we should deal with repentance not by trying harder but by the words of
46:26 these songs. If we can get the song sheet up there. It's actually beautiful.
46:31 It encapsulates all that this passage says. Lord I come.
46:37 I confess. Bowing here I find my rest. Without you, I fall apart. You're the
46:45 one that guides my heart. Next slide. Lord, I need you. Oh, I need you every
46:52 hour. I need you. My one defense. When Satan comes and accuses me, my
46:58 righteousness, oh God, how I need you. Next slide. When
47:05 sin runs deep, your grace is more. Where grace is found where you are and where
47:11 you are Lord I am free. Holiness is what? Christ in me.
47:19 Take it away.
